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PERSEPHONE 

AND 

OTHER POEMS 



CHARLES CAMP TAFELLI 








Glass. 



Book__ 



PERSEPHONE 

AND OTHER POEMS 



"rt^^^ 



s 9 '^^ o 






Copyright, 1898, 
By The Macmillan Company. 

m 1 3 1898 



TWO COPIES ttti^tlVED. 

The Noriimpd Press 

y. S. Cusbing Sf Co. — Berwick & Smith 

Norwood, Mass.y U.S.A. 

1st CO r . 

1898. 



TO 
MY DEAR FRIEND 

WILLIAM HENRY WELLS 



CONTENTS 









I AGE 


Persephone ....... i 


Magna Mater 






25 


A Song of Arrival and Departure 






• 34 


Sonnets ..... 






■ 44 


The Ballade of the Boat 






. 50 


Lays, or Rondeaux . 






. 52 


Triolets ..... 






■ 55 


The Sleeping Beauty 






' 57 


The Enchanted Forest 






59 


Too Late .... 






61 


Au Clair de la Lune 






. 63 


Sestina 






. 65 


Sestina ..... 






68 


Sestina . . . . . 






71 


vii 









vm 



CONTENTS 



Arctopolis 

• • • • 

Catullus 

JUVENTUS AnnI . . 

In the Vallee des Vaux, Jersey 

On the Thames Embankment : December 

An Apocalypse in Fleet Street 

The Grotto of Han 



PAGE 

74 
79 
83 
87 
90 

93 
95 



PERSEPHONE 



1 


_«. 


^M 


■Ba 





EAVY and grey are the skies in the 
slowly gathering darkness, 
Ceaseless falls the pattering rain on 

the grass and the pebbles, 
Damp, and dripping, and sighing, the 
trees wave over the pathway ; 
Glimmering lights in the streets and twinkling lights 

in the windows 
Struggle and slowly gain on the dying lustreless day- 
light. 
Clouded and lustreless day that shuddering dies into 

darkness. 
Dreary and desolate world, ah ! what of the hopes of 

the Summer ? 
What of the promise of Spring, and the wistful hopes 

of the Summer ? 
Where are the golden skies and the bloom of meadow 
and garden ? 



2 PERSEPHONE 

Where is the warmth, and the rush of life, the eager 

unfolding, 
Bursting, and breaking, and budding of all things 

youthful and lovely ? 
Glitter, and gleam, and glory that ravished the eyes 

of the seeing. 
Murmur, and clamour, and song that filled the ears 

of the hearing — 
Chestnut, and lilac, and rose, and v^oodlands spotted 

with wildflowers, 
Carol of rising lark, and cooing of doves, and the 

gurgling 
Note of the full-voiced thrush, and the ripple of 

hurrying brooklets — 
Beauty and joy in the world, and joy and hope in the 

spirit — 
Is it to cease in the weeping gloom of a shivering 

ev'ning ? 
Was it as fragile, and fading, and lying as dreams 

that enchant us. 
Trick us with empty joys till we wake to a life that 

is bitter ? 



PERSEPHONE 3 

Nay, but the promise of Spring, the wistful hopes 
of the Summer 

Fail not for rain in the night and tears of a shivering 
ev'ning : 

Night will pass with its tears, and the sun will smile 
in the morning. 

Night will pass, will pass, and the warmth return and 
the glory. 

Splendour of blossom and fruit, and pageants of Sum- 
mer and Autumn ; 

These will return — and will pass, and frowning, 
taciturn Winter 

Triumph and reign with his sceptre of ice and his 
mantle of darkness. 

All that delights us shall pass, till ourselves, and the 
souls that have loved us. 

Souls we have loved and love, shall pass and descend 
to the silent. 

Desolate world of the dead, the gloomy mansion of 
Orcus, — 

Land that knows not the sun, where we dwell with- 
out any returning. 



4 PERSEPHONE 

Shades that move among shades in a shadowy region 
for ever. 

Light for a moment illumines a moment's life and 
rejoicing : 

Naught is immortal but death, and naught but dark- 
ness eternal. 

All is as fragile, and fading, and lying as dreams that 
enchant us, 

Trick us with empty shows till we sink into blank- 
ness of slumber. 

Far in Sicilian valleys, beside the waters of Fergus, 
Where, in' the beautiful island, adorned with garden 

and vineyard, 
Etna with terraced slopes entombs the Titan Ty- 

phoeus — 
Roaring and heaving he lies in the throes of his 

impotent fury. 
Trembles the mountain above him, and cracks, and 

flames at the summit — 
There, under deep blue skies, by the deeper blue of 

the waters, 



PERSEPHONE 5 

Wandered the lovely Persephone, child of the mighty 

Demeter, 
Child of the Mother Divine who blesses the earth 

with abundance, 
Mother of all the arts that nourish the bodies of 

mortals — 
Sowing, and reaping, and gathering in of the golden 

and waving 
Wheat, and barley, and rye, and planting and rip'ning 

of apples : 
These the bountiful Mother devised for the blessing 

of mortals; 
Lovely, and tender, and strong, belov'd of the Gods 

of Olympus, 
One fair child she bore to Zeus the Lord of the 

Thunder, 
Father of Gods and men, broad-browed, immortal, 

almighty — 
One fair child, Persephone, bright, adorable God- 
dess. 
Under the sheltering trees, in the thick of the wood, 

in the clearings — 



6 PERSEPHONE 

Glades that were green in the sun that shone through 

tempering branches — 
Purple, and golden, and white, the flowers spread 

gleaming and twinkling; 
Decking the silent woods, they smiled in the smile of 

the Goddess, 
As with her laughing maidens she walked and loitered 

among them. 
Plucking the tender blooms with hands whose touch 

was a blessing. 
Filling her lifted kirtle with primrose and virginal 

lily, 
Daffodils yellow and full, and crocus, and lovely 

narcissus, 
Violets shrinking and sweet, and all the flowers that 

the springtime 
Rains over meadow and wood when days are fragrant 

and gracious ; 
These in her kirtle she gathered, and laughed and 

sang with her maidens. 
Full of the joy of the time and the rapture of innocent 

girlhood. 



PERSEPHONE 7 

Sudden a clamour of hoofs — a shadow — a ter- 
rible figure, 
Stern, dark-browed, erect in a car more black than 

the night-sky. 
Stretches a hand and seizes the trembling form of the 

Goddess, 
Lifts her into the car — she cries, she struggles — the 

kirtle 
Slips from her fingers and scatters the treasured 

flowers in a sparkling 
Shower, as the chariot, swift as the wind, and its 

long-maned horses 
Sombre and black, with thundering hoofs, through 

woodland and meadow. 
Valley and slope, rush on, till they come to Cyane's 

fountain ; 
There the dark-browed King of the silent region of 

shadows 
Goads and lashes his steeds, and car and horses 

together 
Drive through the trembling waves, and cleave the 

earth to its centre. 



8 PERSEPHONE 

Bearing the terrified maid to the kingdom of horror 
and darkness. 



Muse of the weeping lyre, Melpomene, lift me and 

fill me ! 
Feeble and voiceless I am, my weak hand trembles 

and wanders 
Touching the tight-drawn strings that answer with 

querulous sobbing 
Broken and faint. O teach me to sing the grief of 

the Goddess, 
Teach me to trouble the strings with the full-voiced 

grief of Demeter, 
When, bereaved, distracted, she sought through moun- 
tain and valley 
Vainly her beautiful child. Long days and nights, 

never resting. 
Over the mournful earth, and the wailing, unharvested 

ocean. 
Went the disconsolate Mother, with hurried step and 

with peering 



PERSEPHONE 9 

Eyes that sought but found not, and filled with tears 

as the slow hours 
Passed, and gave no sign, no hint of the maiden 

beloved. 
Hinds that toiled in the fields, and shepherds that 

watched on the mountains. 
Nymphs in the clear cold streams, and dryads that hid 

in the forests. 
Birds that hovered aloft, and shy beasts roving and 

browsing. 
Wondered and gazed at the dark-robed form as she 

passed them unheeding. 
Drawing her mantle about her, and ceaselessly moving 

and seeking ; 
Eyen the solemn trees, and the laughing flowers, and 

the babbling. 
Leaping and flowing streams, and the green earth 

under her footsteps. 
Felt a nameless dread, a vague foreboding of sor- 
row; 
Over the whole wide world the lonely grief of the 

Goddess 



lo PERSEPHONE 

Spread like a long-drawn sigh, and up through the 

ocean of ether 
Floated, and reached the blissful seats of the happy 

Immortals. 



Long had the Mighty Mother pursued her all 

unavailing 
Weary quest, encircling again and again in her 

journey 
Vainly the orb of lands, when at last at Cyane's 

fountain 
Pausing she saw in the crisping waves a sparkle of 

jewels, 
Saw the jewelled zone that had held Persephone's 

garments. 
Saw, and the gathered grief that filled her quivering 

bosom 
Broke in a sudden storm of wild and passionate 

anguish. 
Loud she railed, and cursed the treacherous earth that 

had opened 



PERSEPHONE ii 

Wide to receive the rapt and helpless form of the 
Goddess. 

Straight over pastures and fields the curse spread kill- 
ing and blighting ; 

Cattle sickened and died, the green corn shrivelled 
and withered, 

Frail flowers drooped on the stem, and beasts fell dead 
in the forest. 

Famine, and plague, and death strode swift through 
homestead and hamlet ; 

All the earth was afraid at the terrible wrath of De- 
meter. 



Then, as her fugitive streams emerged from their 

course in the darkness 
Far under earth and sea to shine once more in the 

daylight. 
Shaking her dripping locks, arose the nymph Are- 

thusa ; 
Spoke, and her voice was rippling and clear as the 

gush of her waters : 



12 PERSEPHONE 

" Mother, to whom the laboured fields their fruitful 

abundance 
Patient and docile yield, obeying thy lightest of ges- 
tures. 
Blame not the harmless earth that all unwillingly 

opened, 
Cleft by a fierce, irresistible power. For I, as I 

journeyed. 
Borne with my rushing streams in their subterranean 

channel. 
Sudden above me saw the blue skies glowing and 

splendid. 
Sudden beneath me saw the desolate valleys of 

Hades 
Open under my path, and the pallid ghosts in a 

rustling. 
Trembling throng bowed low at the feet of a virginal 

Goddess, 
Whom to his sombre throne the puissant Lord of the 

darkness 
Led by a shrinking hand, arrayed in the signs of his 

grandeur. 



PERSEPHONE 13 

Sceptre, and crown, and sovereign power in the King- 
dom of Silence. 

Mourn not, O Mother Divine ! not mean is the fate 
of thy daughter. 

Bride of the brother of Zeus, and Queen of the 
shadowy legions." 



High over mountain and cloud, enthroned in the 

clear empyrean. 
Sat the omnipotent Father, who wields the terrible 

thunder, 
Far below his feet beholding the earth and the 

ocean. 
Watching with searching eyes the going and coming 

of mortals. 
Watching the rapid car and the gold-haired Phcebus- 

Apollo 
Guiding his foaming steeds, while the warm seas 

brightened beneath him. 
Now before the throne, with towering form and with 

flashing 



14 PERSEPHONE 

Eyes, indignant, stood the bereaved, disconsolate 
Mother ; 

Told in burning words her loss, her search, and de- 
manded 

Loud the return of the rapt Persephone. " If, in thy 
lightness. 

Naught to thee is the grief, the pain of the stricken 
Demeter, 

Think of the wrong, the shame to thy child, O 
Father Eternal. 

Not to me alone, to thee is the slight and the in- 
sult." 

Thus the Mother Divine, but Zeus, benignant and 
smiling. 

Sought to assuage her grief, to calm her tempestuous 
anger. 

" Sudden and violent wooing and sudden and violent 
winning. 

Goddess, thy daughter hath known, but need we so 
wildly deplore it ? 

Is he so all unworthy a mate for the child of De- 
meter — 



PERSEPHONE 15 

Lord of a third of the world, my peer, my brother, 

co-equal 
Ruler of things with me and the trident-bearing 

Poseidon ? 
Is it so poor a dower, the sceptre he yields to the 

Goddess ? — 
Queenship of realms more populous far than the 

kingdoms and cities 
Ruled by mortal men who bow to me as their 

Master ? 
Wide is the peopled earth, and many the hosts of the 

living; 
Wider the realms of the shade, and the crowded 

legions of silent. 
Pale and bodiless ghosts more numberless far than the 

toiling. 
Striving, rejoicing men who bless thee for prosperous 

harvests. 
But — for it may be to thee more sweet, more rich and 

delightsome. 
Seems it to breathe the upper airs, to look on the 

glowing 



1 6 PERSEPHONE 

Sun, and the flowering woods, and the green and ver- 
durous meadows, 

Quick in the veins to feel the tingle of life, than the 
regal 

Mantle and sway to bear of the realm of the dead and 
the silent — 

If thy child no food, no juice of berry, or water, 

Yet shall have tasted or touched in the subterranean 
kingdom. 

Once again may she see the skies and the face of her 
mother." 

As when a mortal maid, reclined in a blossoming 
arbour. 

Closes her eyes, and, sleeping, is caught in the grip of 
a phantom 

Arm that holds her and bears her away from the fos- 
tering daylight. 

Out of the sight of the green and smiling world that 
surrounds her. 

Far among valleys of gloom and formless visions of 
horror. 



PERSEPHONE 17 

Shapes that start from the darkness, and strike and 
clutch her in passing. 

Dreadful faces that hover, implacable, mocking, and 
cruel. 

Over her — helpless and faint, bevirildered she strives 
in her terror 

Vainly to move her limbs and to cry, but her crying 
is stifled — 

Speechless and nerveless she sinks in the dreadful 
arms that enfold her : 

So the rapt Persephone came to the shadowy king- 
dom, 

Came to the throne of Pluto, and saw the bodiless 
Manes 

Thronging about her, and bowing low at her feet, as 
the dark God 

Crowned her with sovereign power and signs of 
queenly dominion. 

Trembling, bewildered, mute, she saw, and heard, and 
submitted. 

Playing a royal part, confused as a child that is chid- 
den 



1 8 PERSEPHONE 

Wearing her new-born grandeur, and sick with terror 
and anguish, 

Throned in the midst of prostrate ghosts, and shrink- 
ing to see them, 

Knowing no joy to be queen of a realm so bleak and 
forbidding — 

Naught but sunless gloom, and mournful winds ever 
sighing. 

Naught but languid streams, and rocks, and pale, in- 
substantial 

Shades that lived without life and knew not the 
rapture of living. 

All things filled her with fear; she moved with 
shivering horror 

Slow through her desolate realm, and longed for the 
skies and the sunlight. 

Longed for the earth with its flowers, and the sound 
of the streams in the mountains. 

Longed for the laugh of her maidens, the tender face 
of her mother. 

Faint and cheerless she wandered through grey and 
lustreless gardens, 



PERSEPHONE 19 

Where in the chilling breeze the dark boughs drearily 

rustled 
Over beds of languorous flowers, and unglistening 

fountains 
Fell with a hollow, monotonous plash into basins of 

darkness. 
Reaching her hand, she plucked a ripe pomegranate, 

and, musing, 
Moistened her lips with its juice — and the grim 

Fates looked at each other. 



Who in the world of the silent dead hath eaten or 

drunken 
Never again shall see the earth and the face of the 

living : 
So have the Fates decreed, the three implacable 

Sisters, 
Pitiless, not to be moved by the prayers of Gods or 

of mortals, 
Weaving eternal dooms that Zeus himself cannot 

alter. 



20 PERSEPHONE 

But for Persephone doomed the boundless grief of 
Demeter 

Half availed, and the power of Zeus the Olympian 
father. 

Six long months of the year must she pass in the des- 
olate kingdom, 

Six brief months may she see the skies and the face 
of her mother : 

So the Father hath willed, and the grudging Fates 
have consented. 

Half the course of the sun the Goddess sees not 

the daylight. 
Shut in the depths of earth in the silent mansion of 

Orcus ; 
Queen of the dull grey world, she rules the shadowy 

legions, 
Holding imperial sway through all the dominions of 

darkness ; 
All the hosts of the dead obey her terrible sceptre. 
Tremble and shrink if she frown, and wait on her 

lightest of movements ; 



PERSEPHONE 21 

All the power of the dark-browed king is laid on her 

shoulders. 
But when the breath of Spring is felt in meadow and 

woodland, 
When the blossoms appear, and the green bursts 

forth in the hedges. 
When the choir of birds begins its song in the 

branches. 
When the unfettered streams laugh loud to the 

echoing mountains. 
Then from her dark abode comes forth the beautiful 

Goddess, 
Glad to behold the sun and the glowing skies, the 

awakened 
Woodland, and meadow, and stream, and to hear the 

birds in the branches. 
Glad to feel in her veins the tingle of life, and to 

revel 
Light as a child on the breast of the youthful year, as 

it surges 
Loud and full, a rising wave of the Ocean of 

Being 



22 PERSEPHONE 

Lapping the shores of Time, in the sight of the boun- 
tiful Mother. 

So is the fate of the Goddess, and so is the being 

of mortals 
Ruled by the powers of the sky and the gods of the 

kingdom infernal; 
Over the whole wide world the lords of light and of 

darkness. 
Lords of life and death, and spirits of pity and terror, 
Strive without ceasing, and now to one and now to 

the other 
Sways the victorious tide and bears the tokens of 

triumph. 
Earth smiles fair in the Spring, and pageants of 

Summer and Autumn 
Splendid pass and are gone, and frowning, taciturn 

Winter 
Triumphs and reigns with his sceptre of ice and his 

mantle of darkness. 
Man in his youthful prime is light as the flowers of 

the woodland, 



PERSEPHONE 23 

Glowing with vigour and beauty, and strong for 

labour and battle; 
But, as the swift years pass, his strength decays, and 

he lapses 
Feeble and pale to the grave, to the Acherusian 

valleys. 
Yet, though we die, we know that life is the lord of 

creation ; 
Yet, while Spring returns and chases the shadow of 

Winter, 
While the splendour of blossom and fruit revives 

with the seasons; 
While, immortal and strong, eternally youthful and 

lovely. 
Far, from Olympian heights, the fair Gods smile 

upon mortals ; 
While the broad-browed Zeus, and Hera, and Pallas- 
Athene, 
Mighty, and wise, and benignant, behold the labour 

of mortals ; 
While, returning with Spring, the sweet Persephone 

wanders 



24 



PERSEPHONE 



Blithe through meadow and wood, and gladdens the 

eyes of her mother — 
Hope in our bosoms will live and put forth tremulous 

blossoms. 



MAGNA MATER 



HUT in the narrow bound 

Of the low-walled garden-space 
Houses on either side 
Stretching in endless line — 
High overhead I see, 



Jn the midnight hush, immense, 
Remote, mysterious, deep. 
The imperturbable sky. 
White and cold as the snow 
Of Arctic wastes unsunned, 
Clouds in a moving mass 
Fill the vaulted space ; 
Rare brief openings show 
A glimpse of the infinite blue, 
Blue with a blue that is dark 
As a deep still pool in the shade 
Of woods unpierced by the sun. 
Ever amid the dull 



*5 



26 MAGNA MATER 

Floating expanse of white, 

A gleaming circle spreads 

From central brightness, and dim 

And dimmer fades as it spreads. 

There, as through a veil 

Closely woven and thin, 

Glimmering shines the moon. 

Only again and again. 

The solemn march of the clouds 

Brings beneath her a rift 

In their wind-torn vaporous bulk ; 

Then for a moment she smiles 

Full and silvery clear. 

Greeting the silent night. 

To be veiled in a moment again. 



Awful the silence grows. 

And the chilling calm of the sky ; 

Dreadful the infinite depths 

Of the blue that the rifts lay bare ; 

Far and cold the smile, 



MAGNA MATER 27 

The icy smile of the moon ; 

Mute, impassive, and grave 

The marching legion of clouds. 

Htished is the trouble and stir 

Of the labouring hive of men. 

And the kindly voices of earth ; 

I am alone in a w^orld 

Of measureless spaces, and vast 

Forces that never stay. 

Yet, moving, are ever at rest 

In a cold, immovable peace. 

Yearning, and pity, and pain. 

Love, and passion, and joy. 

Touch them not at all ; 

They are but pulses and breaths 

Of the stern, implacable Power 

That knows not pleasure or grief, 

That labours not nor rests. 

But abides immutably calm 

In the midst of the clamour and strife 

Of the worlds it makes and destroys — 

Worlds and suns that it bears 



t8 MAGNA MATER 

As the trees bear blossom and leaf, - 

Bears to ripen and teem 

With crowded life, to freeze 

And shrink and die, to turn 

A ghastly face to the night. 

As yonder the glimmering moon, — 

Dead to be whirl'd, to be lost 

In the yawning abysses of space. 

Like withered leaves that fall 

In the silent autumn woods 

And drift far off on the wind. 

A world of dying and dead ; 

A storm that drives in the night 

Barks that labour and strain. 

Wrecks that stagger and drift — 

And I in the midst of the storm, 

Lonely, lonely waif 

On the breast of the infinite sea, 

That bears me for ever on 

With its rushing waves that break 

On no wide-welcome shore. 

Impotent, beaten and tossed. 



MAGNA MATER 29 

Still must I move with the tide — 
Till my dying strokes grow faint, 
And I sink in unsounded deeps, — 
Till, relentless and cold. 
Under a pitiless sky. 
Over my sinking head 
The heaving waters close. 



Comes a breath to my cheek, 
Comes a voice in my ear, 
A voice as of winds that stir, 
A voice as of shaken pines, 
A voice as of murmuring seas. 
Hark ! it gathers and grows 
All around, from the sky 
Falling, and, vague, from the earth 
Rising, and from the sea. 
Slow from the far-off sea. 
Rolling broken and wild. 
Low, and strange, and deep, 
Inarticulate, now 



30 MAGNA MATER 

It breaks like a sob, and now 
Falls into silence again ; 
Then in a rising wave 
Of deep-drawn murmurous sound 
Sighs, and I listen and wait. 
Louder and fuller it grows, 
And clearer, and now I hear, 
Plain, distinct, and sweet, 
Tender words of rebuke : 



Hear, O querulous child. 

Who deemest thyself alone. 

Lost in the night and the waste ! 

From the waste, from the night, from the depths 

Of star-strewn space, from the heart. 

The heart of Nature, I, 

The Mighty Mother, speak — 

I who move in the course 

Of the circling spheres, in the tides 

Of ocean and air, who smile 

In the warm bright smile of the sun. 



MAGNA MATER 

In the cold bright smile of the moon, 

I who am green in the grass, 

Who wave in the yellowing corn. 

Who breathe in the living breath 

Of all my numberless sons. 

I am no cold, no dead 

Unfeeling Power, — I am Life. 

Yearning, and hope, and love. 

Pain and labour I know. 

As I bear the worlds and the stars. 

As I strive through eternal time 

To mould the stubborn clod 

To sweetness, and beauty, and grace. 

Effort and toil without end. 

And doubt of the far-off goal. 

These are mine. — And ye. 

Men, my children, O men ! 

Are ye not flesh of my flesh. 

Are ye not bone of my bone. 

Are ye not blood of my blood ? 

Are ye not fruit of my womb 

No less than the flaming suns. 



31 



32 MAGNA MATER 

No less than the rolling worlds ? 

Think ye that I have no joy 

In your joy, no pain in your pain ? 

Think ye your hopes are not mine ? 

Know ye not whence ye are, 

Ungrateful sons who forget ? 

Whence is your throbbing life, 

Your love, your thoughts that stray 

Far through the regions of space. 

Far through the ages of time ? 

Whence the doubt, the fear. 

The hope that wings your soul 

Through the infinite void 

Of darkness unplumbed, unknown ? 

Your gathering tears, your joy ? 

Unheeding sons ! they are mine, 

Mine ! It is I, it is I 

Who pour the blood through your veins, 

Stir your restless thought. 

Kindle the love in your heart. 

Mine is the sting of your pain. 

Mine is the thrill of your joy. 



MAGNA MATER 33 

While ye are strong in my strength, 
While ye drink from my breast 
Nourishing waters of life, — 
Drink, drink deep from my soul 
The living waters of hope ! 



A SONG OF ARRIVAL AND 
DEPARTURE 




AR behind us into the sea, 
Into the heaving shimmering grey-green 

sea, 
Hanging a moment and suddenly dis- 
appearing. 

Dips the hot red ball of the flaming sun ; 
The hissing waters close above him. 
Crimson and gold they tremble and gleam 
In a burning track that ends in a hanging line 
Of glowing flame on the edge of the sky. 
Rapid and straight we cleave the breast of the sea. 
And a fresh wind blows in our face with a sprinkle 

of salt sharp spray. 
And over the rose-grey sea and the rose-grey coast of 
the isle 



34 



ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 35 

Rises the large and ghostly moon in a pale rose sky. 

Nearer and nearer we draw to the island coast, 

Till the wide bay holds us fast in its close-enfolding 

shores, 
And the harbour spreads its arms and takes us in. 
And we moor to the lighted pier. 



Beautiful island hidden in night ! 

In the glow of the morning sun, in the breath of the 
morning air, 

I shall see thy spreading shores with their sloping 
green. 

The wooded steeps, the sprinkled houses white. 

The purple rocks in the bay, the changing hues of 
the sea. 

The gulls with their sweeping flight and their plain- 
tive cry. 

Splendour of floating cloud and gleaming sails ; 

I shall tread thy winding lanes. 

Where mosses and twisted ivy and hanging weeds 

Cover the high banks crowned with trees. 



36 ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 

And splashes of sunlight dapple the spreading shade ; 

I shall dream in thy deep still valleys, and through 
my dream 

The chatter of flowing streams and the rustle of 
swaying boughs 

Shall murmur and mix with the songs that sing in 
my soul ; 

I shall see thy sheltered bays, and hear the thunder- 
ing surge 

Of the waves on granite boulders scattered and 
heaped ; 

I shall see the sun on thy rocks, and the rain on thy 
well-tilled fields; 

I shall know thee, and love thee, and read thy face, 

And leave thee, and sail away. 



Ever arriving, ever departing, vagabond still ; 

When the bond of the daily task is loosened, ever 

away 
On the thread of the trodden road, or the flow of the 

furrowed sea ; 



ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 37 

Tasting the water of life at a thousand various springs, 

Loving the changing sights of the world that is set in 
my heart ; 

The eye is not filled with seeing, the ear with hear- 
ing, the soul 

Floats like a floating cloud, and rolls like a rolling 
wave. 

Till the hour shall sound to depart on the unre- 
turning march. 

II 

Out of the darkness into the dawning light. 

From the infinite unknown sea and the night that no 
man knows. 

Remembering not the way, or the ship, or the guid- 
ing stars. 

We arrive, we disembark on the shores of this island- 
world. 

The shores are dim in a dim grey light, the hills. 

The woods, the broad deep streams, and fields and 
cities of men. 

Lie half-descried in a glimmering gloom, and large. 



38 ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 

Phantasmal rise the shapes that gather about us, 

Moving and speaking unfamiliar words ; 

All that we see is new, and all that we hear is 

strange, ^ 

And we look with wondering eyes, and wail with 

speechless lips. 
We grow with the days and nights and the hurrying 

years ; 
We look on the world in the light, we move through 

the world in the dark. 
Under the hot bright sun, and the star-strewn skies 

of night ; 
And the sightl of the undulant fields, and the sounds 

of the rustling woods. 
The throng and the stir and the clatter of city streets. 
The kindly faces of men, and the musical speech of 

men. 
And love, and hate, and labour, and tears, and joy. 
And thoughts of life and death, and hopes and hover- 
ing fears. 
Dreams of a doubtful heaven and fabled horrors of 

hell. 



ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 39 

The splendour and terror that are, and the things we 

know not of, 
The lucid glory of day and the truths that are cried 

aloud, 
The gleams that are half-discerned and the whispers 

hardly caught — 
They move, they quicken and fill us, they charm and 

trouble our days ; 
These are the breath of our life, these are the pulse 

of our blood. 
These are the soul of our soul. 
If in a weary hour we shrink from the sight and the 

sound 
And the touch of them all, and long to leave them 

and rest, — 
The languor past, we bound, we thrill to their magic 

again. 
We are loath and sad when the hour. 
The pitiless hour arrives, and the ship with shadowy 

sails 
That waits to bear us again to sea. 



40 ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 

lU 

Over the infinite unknown sea 

That washes for ever the shores of our island-world, 

And vanishes out of sight on every side, 

The dark ship bears us away, away from the land 

that we love. 
The shores grow dim and dimmer, the darkness falls 

on our eyes. 
Darkness blacker than night with never a star. 
Darkness wide and vast — will it ever lift ? will the 

day 
Break with the shining of other suns on far untra veiled 

lands ? 
All is still — no sound but the long deep moan of the 

sea. 
No calling voices of men, no lights of ships that pass ; 
We rise with the rising wave, we move with the wind 

as it blows j 
We fall asleep on the deck — we know not if we shall 

wake — 
We are borne we know not where. 



ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 41 

IV 

Eternal Spirit, Divine, impalpable, near ! 

Felt in the throbbing heart, felt in the flow of the 

blood ; 
Known in the quick surprise of sudden luminous 

thoughts 
That flash on the dark that broods on the quiet depths 

of the soul ; 
Subtly pervading the world, guessed at a moment and 

lost; 
In the splendour of dawn and sunset and star-lit skies. 
In the beauty of spreading fields, and mountain, and 

lake, and sea, 
Filling us full of thy presence, flooding our hearts 

with thy joy. 
Till we know that the world is thine, till we doubt not 

that all is well — 
Strong in the strength of thee, I walk erect, I move 
In the sinuous paths of fate. 
Light under smiling skies, unbending under the 

storm. 



42 ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 

Treading with joy the woodland track, the crowded 

street, 
Breathing with joy the fresh-blown air of the swelling 

downs. 
With joy the keen cold blast that shakes the mountain 

pines, — 
Loving the folded valleys, the wide bare plains. 
The tumbled brook, and the quietly-flowing stream. 
The region of scattered farms, and the dense-packed 

space of the town. 
The sights, the sounds, the life of this island- 
world — 
And hearing undismayed the roar of the lonely 

sea, 
The ceaseless roar of the sea that breaks on its farthest 

shores. 
The vast untravelled sea, unknown, unscanned, but 

thine. 
Eternal Spirit, and whispering ever of thee. 
Then when the call shall come to rise, to embark, to 

sail 
In the tall black-masted ship, I will not shrink ; 



ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE 43 

I will yield myself to thee, I will give myself to the 

dark — 
To the long unwaking sleep, or new undreamed-of 

life. 



SONNETS 




HE tide sweeps in along the narrowing 
shore ; 
Drowned is the track where late I 

walked and mused ; 
Each wave, a captive giant freshly 
loosed, 
Magnificently leaps as it would soar 
To meet the blue of heaven ; but, long before 

That height is reached, all shattered and con- 
fused. 
It swerves and falls, its massy bulk diffused 
In flakes of foam, with baffled dying roar. 



So, when thy pulses throb with passion high. 
Thou labourest, O my soul ! with piled words 
To touch the cloud-hid infinite of thought, - 

44 



SONNETS 45 

And failest ; and thine ill-sustained cry 
Trembles away in feeble, broken chords, 
Wild dissonance of jangled notes distraught. 



II. — Starlight in Fog 

The night is cold, and the wan earth appears 

As if she had heard the trumpet of her doom 
And waited, shrouded for her destined tomb 

In clinging fog, the sad remaining years ; 

Yet here and there a glimmer of starlight cheers 
The darkness, telling how, beyond our gloom. 
The warmth that quickened Nature into bloom 

Still glows in all her myriad fiery spheres. 

E'en so, upon the darkest of our days, 

When the world's chilling vapour wraps us round, 
A glance, a pressure of the hand, a smile. 
Tells us Man's spirit is not wholly vile, 
That still some generous, heart-renewing blaze 
God-kindled burns amid the night profound. 



46 SONNETS 

III. — Man and Nature 

Awful she stood, with fiery splendours crowned ; 

He bowed his head and hushed his voice for fear, 

Covered his eyes, and trembling drew anear. 
And laid his few poor gifts upon the ground. 
He never knew if grace his offerings found. 

He never once might read her meaning clear ; 

He fabled soothing words to please his ear. 
But when she spoke he shuddered at the sound. 

At last he lifted up his head, and bent 

A calm, keen gaze upon her ; and she smiled, 
And all her secrets told at his command, 
And worked his will with forces never spent, 
And let him curb her mad caprice, and mild 
Obeyed the lightest waving of his hand. 

IV 

Love's Paradise is very fair to see : 

Shot with the sun, about the hidden bowers. 
The crisped leaves sparkle like golden showers. 



SONNETS 47 

And Love is there with all his company ; 

Fond words are whispered under every tree, 

Fair youths and damsels walk among the flowers 
With hands close-clasped, and all the happy 
hours 

Are full of soft delights, but not for me. 

O bitter fate ! O banishment most hard ! 
I see, but may not enter, and the breeze 

Brings to my ears the words I must not name. 
Which others speak. All joys are giv'n to these : 
To me the gate for ever closed and barred. 

The angel and the waving sword of flame. 



V. — June 1897 

The Roman in his triumphs dragged in chains 
Briton, and swarthy Indian, and the tall 
Fair-bearded Teuton, and the wild-eyed Gaul, 

The dreaded bowman of the Parthian plains ; 

And many a tribe whose name alone remains 



48 SONNETS 

To after time sent kings and chiefs in thrall 
To greet the swelling power so soon to fall, 
Trailing a tarnished splendour as it wanes. 

But in thy train, dear Lady, who dost wear 
The crown of England's glory and her love. 

Dark warriors from strange lands beyond the seas, 
The turbaned Sikh, Dyak, and Haussa, move. 
And, side by side with English heroes, bear 

The sword we wield for freedom and for peace. 



VI 

Long shut in cities, wearied with the fret 

Of aimless labour and of pleasures vain. 
Vain pleasures, and the unprofitable strain 

Of idle learning, thoughts that hover yet 

Over the tortured brain that would forget 

How gladly all their burden of hard pain. 
Here on thy sacred threshold once again. 

Nature ! my home-returning feet are set. 



SONNETS 



49 



O Mother ! lift again my head low-bowed, 
My aching head the bitter garland binds ; 
Quicken me with new life ; let thy great winds 
Blow on me through the swaying of thy trees ; 
Sweep by me with thy pageants of grey cloud. 
And rock me with the rolling of thy seas. 



THE BALLADE OF THE BOAT 




N the green banks that turn and bend 
The low sun throws a parting beam; 
The lingering light doth fade and blend 
With shades that creep, a noiseless 
team; 

The smitten waters crisp and cream 
Above, the loud rooks whirl and soar ; 
I hear amid their strident scream 
The light plash of the feathered oar. 



Let travel-hungry souls contend, 

With bellying sail or rolling steam, 

To scour the world from end to end. 
And hidden treasures to redeem 
From Nature's secret shrines, to seem 

As gods that rule the seas that roar : 

Give me to hear 'mid dace and bream 

The light plash of the feathered oar. 

50 



THE BALLADE OF THE BOAT 51 

O Time, your restless course suspend, 
Or let the Fates who sew and seam 

Full store of leisured moments send. 
Alas ! howe'er I fret and scheme, 
Too soon will come the day, I deem, 

When I shall see and hear no more 

The lifted blades that glance and gleam, 

The light plash of the feathered oar. 

L'Envoy 

Queen Proserpine, is there no stream 

In thy dark realms whose leafy shore 

May echo, while I float and dream. 

The light plash of the feathered oar ? 



LAYS, OR RONDEAUX, 

IN THE Manner of Master Francois Villon 




OSES about the arbour twined, 

Fragrant and red, that climb and 

creep, 
And smiling through the trellis 
peep. 
And lightly rustle in the wind ; 
Ye bring my gentle love to mind. 

Whose eyes are soft, and blue, and deep, 

Roses ! 



I go her folded bower to find. 

To wake her from her summer sleep. 
Her clinging hand in mine to keep. 
And round her blushing brows to bind 

Roses. 
5^ 



LAYS, OR RONDEAUX 53 

II 

O come not to my silent tomb, 

When I am dust in dust that lies, 
And see no more the changing skies. 

Cold in the cold and clinging gloom. 

Now, ere the swift-approaching doom 

Has chilled my heart and closed my eyes, 

O come ! 

Ah ! then there will be little room 

For love and joy, and happy sighs. 
And whispered words and low replies ! 

Now, while the flower of love doth bloom, 

O come ! 
Ill 

The rose will bloom when we are dead 
With all as deep and rich a hue. 
If many be our days, or few. 
If sunny skies above our head 
Or dark and thunderous clouds be spread. 
If false our hearts shall prove, or true. 
The rose will bloom. 



54 LAYS, OR RONDEAUX 

When we to dust are sunk and sped, 

Still will the earth her pomps renew, 
And still beneath the twisted yew 

That watches o'er our narrow bed 

The rose will bloom 

IV 

The falling rain, the wind that sighs. 

The droppings from the shivering leaves, 
Tears of the lonely night that grieves. 
Moans of the air, and broken cries 
Of summer bloom that slowly dies, 

While mournfully the earth receives 

The falling rain. 

Heavily on my spirit 

The pall the changing season weaves. 
The thought of passing life that heaves 

And sobs under the weeping skies, 

The falling rain. 



;^ff;'^^''t'i'I^fi':1V^l'l'!\!VI^\ 







TRIOLETS 

A Parting 



KISS the sadly pouting lips, 

I stroke and kiss the dimpled 
cheek. 
From the great eyes a tear-drop slips, 
I kiss the sadly pouting lips. 
She trembles to the finger-tips ; 

I look and look, I cannot speak — 
I kiss the sadly pouting lips, 

I stroke and kiss the dimpled cheek. 

II 

Into the dawning light I ride ; 

I turn, and see her at the gate. 
Farther and farther from her side 
Into the dawning light I ride. 
55 



S6 TRIOLETS 

She waves her hand. O bare and wide 
And homeless world ! O heavy fate ! 

Into the dawning light I ride ; 

I turn, and see her at the gate. 



THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 



Rondeau Redouble 




BEND and kiss the lovely sleeping 
face; 
Through the sweet lips the soft 
breath comes and goes; 
There is a deathly stillness in the place, 
A fragrance of the plucked, long-faded rose. 

The summer air through the wide casement blows ; 

She lies a witching shape of languid grace ; 
I think, what passionate eyes those lids enclose ! 

I bend and kiss the lovely sleeping face. 

In the white arm the faint blue lines I trace. 

Over her limbs the rich robe falls and flows. 
Her bosom gleams through threads of delicate lace. 
Through the sweet lips the soft breath comes and 
goes. 

57 



58 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 

The slumbering house a slumberous shadow throws 
Over the long-untended garden-space ; 

Tangled and thick and high the green hedge grows : 
There is a deathly stillness in the place. 

The moments pass with slow and silent pace; 

In the hot light the heavy arras glows, 
And in the voiceless chamber floats and stays 

A fragrance of the plucked, long-faded rose. 

How long her sleep has lasted no man knows, 
Or where he tarries who the spell shall chase ; 

Her still unbroken slumber plainly shows 

I am not he. In vain with warm embrace 

I bend and kiss. 



THE ENCHANTED FOREST 



Rondeau Redouble 




NDER the boughs a world of tangled 
green 
Spreads dense and silent, hidden 
from the skies. 
The shadows close about him, and 
between 
Tall twisted trunks the night-wind moans and 
sighs. 

Moans the night-wind, and loud and shrill replies 
Sound from the darkness, and the fitful sheen 

Of dancing lights gleams where gaunt brackens rise 
Under the boughs, a world of tangled green. 

And now above and all around are seen 

Strange shapes that flit, and shout fantastic cries, 

And vanish where the forest's wild demesne 

Spreads dense and silent, hidden from the skies. 

59 



6o THE ENCHANTED FOREST 

Many a broad-winged phantom floats and flies 
Over his head, and dreadful talons keen 

Wound his pale face and strike his startled eyes. 
The shadows close about him, and between 

The rustling bushes rides the Fairy Queen, 
And all her elfin pageant moves and plies 

Its secret rites under the leaves that screen 

Tall twisted trunks. The night-wind moans and 
sighs. 

Far in the meadows where the bright sun dries 

The lingering dews, wandering with frightened 

mien 
A lonely charger snifFs the air serene ; — 
Silent, and cold, and dead his rider lies 

Under the boughs. 



TOO LATE 

Rondeau Redouble 

E rideth fast along the forest-way ; 

The dead twigs crack beneath his 
horse's tread — 
For he had dreamed of precious forms 
that lay 
In burnt and plundered walls forlorn and dead. 




The loud wind showers the leaves upon his head ; 

The morning rises damp and cold and grey, 
Clouded and black the night-skies o'er him spread ; 

He rideth fast along the forest-way. 



Over the path the winding creepers stray, 

Above the mingled boughs are closely wed ; 

He spurs his steed, — he may not rest or stay ; 

The dead twigs crack beneath his horse's tread. 

6i 



62 TOO LATE 

A haunting fear, a dark and clinging dread 

Hath held him long with never-lifted sway, 

Since dazed and wild he started from his bed — 
For he had dreamed of precious forms that lay 

Silent and cold. — Alas ! the sudden fray 
Is over, and the loaded victors sped ; 

His loved ones lie in bloody disarray 

In burnt and plundered walls, forlorn and dead. 

Alas ! what bitter tears are yet to shed 
Over the stark and unawaking clay ! 

Little have tardy-warning dreams bested. 

In vain by weeping night and cheerless day 

He rideth fast. 



AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE 

Rondeau Redouble 

NDER the moon, across the rippled sea, 
Yon silver track doth lead to Fairy- 
land, 
And dim among the scattered clouds 
that flee 
The ramparts of the Fairy City stand. 



mmki 


^:| 


ii^^m 


#|| 


i[^y^^ 


fll 


' ■.>•,».,.»»»>»»»>»»»»»» 


m 



Soft is the air, and on the gleaming sand 

The light waves break and fall caressingly. 

And white and fair the distant sails expand 
Under the moon across the rippled sea. 



The moonlight fills the blue immensity 

Of summer sky, and breezes light and bland 

Blow ruffling not my charmed reverie — 

Yon silver track doth lead to Fairyland. 

63 



64 AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE 

And see, in swaying ranks the noiseless band 
Of dancing fays in sweeping measures free 

Moves sparkling in the light, hand linked in hand, 
And dim among the scattered clouds that flee. 

To the great tides' low-muttered minstrelsy 

Crowding they rise from sombre depths un- 
scanned. 

And float from where in solemn majesty 
The ramparts of the Fairy City stand. 

Embattled walls by crafty magic planned. 
Aerial spires and domes of porphyry — 

Ah ! who will bear me to that luring strand. 
Home of soft love and all delights that be 

Under the moon ? 



SESTINA 




S, in the stately march of Arnaut's 
song,i 
Through line on line the same re- 
peated words 
Run through their changing order, 
and return : 
So, from the darkness and the silence cast 
On unknown shores, we pass through shifting scenes 
Back to the dark and silent world of death. 

Trembling upon the verge of life and death. 
An inarticulate wail begins our song ; 
We learn to love the soon familiar scenes. 
To smile upon and greet with stammering words 
The tender souls with whom our lot is cast. 
The sights that come, and vanish, and return. 

1 The Sestina, invented by Arnaut Daniel, the troubadour, in the thir- 
teenth century. 

F 6s 



66 SESTINA 

The seasons in their sure and swift return 
Conduct us on the road whose end is death ; 
And sun and shadow on our way are cast ; 
Love, laughter, tears, and joy, and dance, and song, 
Give changing matter to our changing words, 
And faces new surround us and new scenes. 

Yet though we change our fortunes and our scenes. 
The same delights and the same cares return ; 
And still our deepest thoughts and lightest words 
Harp on the same deep themes of life and death ; 
And the same notes are heard in all our song, 
In changing sequence and new measures cast. 

And as we move a wistful look we cast 

On the dear faces and the cherished scenes. 

That soon no more shall listen to our song. 

That soon shall vanish never to return ; 

And more and more the solemn thought of death 

Broods on our heart and lingers in our words. 

Ah ! impotent and vain are all our words ! 
The day must come for us to be outcast 



SESTINA 67 

And banished in the final doom of death. 
And though, amid the old, unchanging scenes, 
Still the same sights and sounds endless return. 
Yet do we love this life that fills our song. 

No less the song must cease in trembling words. 
When we return to silence, or are cast 
Among new scenes beyond the blank of death. 




SESTINA 

The Higher Scepticism 

ITH stumbling feet, under dark skies 
of doubt, 
I labour in the rugged way of truth^ 
Cheered only by bright dreams that 
are but dreams 
And brief rays from the clouded moon of faith, 
And pressing to my heart the lamp of love, 
That haply I may reach the feet of God. 

O might I look upon the face of God 
With glad eyes unafraid, undimmed by doubt, 
And drink deep potions of immortal love. 
And see the perfect lineaments of truth ! 
Might I but win again my childish faith. 
And lull my thoughts asleep with pleasant dreams ! 

68 



SESTINA 69 

How happy was I when I lived in dreams, 

And dreaming grasped the outstretched hand of God 

Unquestioning, unwavering in my faith, 

And knowing not the dreaded name of doubt, 

Unvexed by thoughts of what and where is truth. 

Nor fearing death might be the end of love. 

Now even in the tender joy of love 

I tremble, chased and held by hovering dreams 

That point me to a skull and call it truth, 

And to a wild world blank and bare of God, 

Holding no answer to my weary doubt. 

No light, no warmth to feed my sinking faith. 

With longing eyes I see the simple faith. 

The life of common cares and kindly love. 

Of gentle souls unharassed by black doubt. 

O might I share their hope and dream their dreams. 

And kneel with them and pray to the dear God, 

And know the comfort of their Word of Truth ! 

But no ; to try all paths in quest of truth. 
Not dwelling in walled creeds j to hold no faith 



70 SESTINA 

Save what my own clear spirit draws from God ; 
To wear no fetters but the bonds of love — 
No way but this to scatter evil dreams, 
And ride with hope upon the waves of doubt. 

For surely doubt is but the sword of truth, 
Fatal to dreams, the guard of manly faith. 
The test of love — and what is love but God ? 



SESTINA 



The Adventurers 




OIST every sail ! On, on into the 
deep ! 
Into the deep where many voices 

call — 
Caressing voices singing round our 
bark, 
Stern voices of the thunder and the storm, 
Strange voices whispering secret words of God 
Far o'er the seas from some remoter shore. 

The timorous friends who watch us from the shore 
Would daunt us with the perils of the deep. 
Tempt not," they cry, " the dreadful hand of 

God ! " 
Stay, stay with us ! " the well-loved voices call. 
^' Ah ! see ye not the gathering of the storm 
That waits to tear and rend your staggering bark ? " 

71 



u 



u 



72 SESTINA 

Light in the breeze, with swelling sails, our bark 
Bounds with the waves that bear her from the shore ; 
Our hearts are bold to meet the fiercest storm, 
And glad to ride the vast, long-heaving deep 
Bright in the sun ; we heed no hindering call. 
Free of the wide untravelled realm of God. 

Within our valiant breasts the voice of God 

Sounds grave and sweet, and all about our bark 

The gleaming waves, the broad-winged birds that call. 

The breaking surge upon the distant shore. 

And all the murmur of the moving deep — 

Seem voices of the Power that rules the storm. 

Now comes the night, and with the night the storm 
Blots from the lonely sky the stars of God, 
And wakes the slumbering fury of the deep ; 
Horror and death ride black above our bark. 
No lights are seen from any friendly shore, 
No help is near to answer to our call. 

But ever following some far-heard call. 
Fearless and swift we sail in sun and storm 



SESTINA 73 

Through unknown seas ; on many a strange new 

shore 
We touch but stay not — dwelling still with God, 
In no walled town, but in our tight-built bark 
Floating secure upon the floating deep. 

Across the deep mysterious voices call, 

And when our bark shall pass beyond the storm 

It may be God will greet us from the shore. 



ARCTOPOLIS 




Ahi, quanto a dir qual era e cosa dura ! 

Dante. 

the vague world of sleep, whose 
shores are washed 
By dreaming seas, and lit by ghostly 

suns 
And stars that shine not in the waking 
sky, 
I voyaged' — if alone, or companied 
By friends unseen or seen, I cannot tell; 
For souls that wander in that world return 
Half-dipped in some slow Lethe, bringing back 
A troubled memory that half forgets 
And half remembers ; so I feel and grope. 
Recalling what I saw, and now I touch 
A floating shade, and now I strike the void. 
Travelling I know not how, I reached at length 
I know not what far region, bleak and grey 

74 



ARCTOPOLIS 75 

And cold, — of drifted snow and huddled ice, 
Perhaps, and rare dark pools — I noted not — 
Only that I was infinitely removed 
From all familiar scenes, far in the dim 
And desolate northern world. I felt the ache 
Of strangeness and remoteness, and I saw. 
Stretching about me under a sunless sky. 
Lonely and endless wastes, empty and still ; 
No tender green, no whisper of leaves, no gush 
Of rippled waters, not a hint of life. 
Motion or colour, — naught but bare and wide 
Deserts of boundless space, empty and still. 
Inhospitable as death. 

Then was I ware. 
In the dull light, of cumbered ruins vast 
And terrible that rose on every hand 
About me, strange, incalculably old. 
Shaped in some long-forgotten fashion, — stark 
And mute, like giants that had watched and watched 
Sleepless since the beginning of the world. 
Till the slow years had chilled them into stone. 



76 ARCTOPOLIS 

Beauty or splendour, or homely air of rest 
And pleasant harbourage for toil-worn men, 
And sweet familiar cheer — these had they not ; 
But towering vastness and inhuman strength, 
And strangeness as of alien races old. 
Long vanished from the highways of the earth — 
Close-lipped and solemn races that had borne 
The rigour of inhospitable climes. 
And built them mighty walls that should endure. 
And passed ; and all their labour and their joy 
Slept in the embattled tomb their hands had piled ; 
And over them inviolate silence watched, 
And secular oblivion closed them round. 

I looked, and as I looked more vast and vague, 
More alien and unhomelike in my eyes 
Loomed the huge masses of this city of death. 
Frowning and bare, — no green caress of plants. 
Embracing ivy and soft-bearded moss. 
And flowers that peep from clefts of crumbling stone. 
Soothed mortal ruin with the touch of life ; — 
More and more distant seemed the hoary time 



ARCTOPOLIS ^^ 

When in these streets the crowded stir of men 
Moved with the buzz of voices long ago 
Stifled and hushed ; more infinitely far 
And strange the desert region seemed, and more 
Importunate and biting grew the pain 
Nostalgic that oppressed my homeless heart, 
And troubled all my sense, till I awoke. 

Waking, I sought to gather and to hold 

Firm in my shuddering thought the dreadful shapes 

Cyclopean of those halls untenanted. 

To fix in memory the desolate land 

Lifeless and bloomless, and its unlit skies. 

In vain : the sullen waves Lethaean rolled 

Oblivious o'er my soul, and dim and dim. 

Paling and trembling, from my straining eyes 

The shadowy forms receded, and again 

I slept, and, sleeping, still, through darkling scenes 

Withdrawing and confounded more and more, 

I followed after fading shapes that fled. 

And clutched at phantom images that slipped 

Impalpable as vapour from my grasp, 



78 ARCTOPOLIS 

And fed my sight on floating visions wan 

That lost before my eyes colour and form, 

And sought and sought vainly to win again 

The irrecoverable memory 

Of that lone city of the vanished dead, 

Which still, uncertain, haunts my waking hours 

A vague remembrance of vast structures old, 

Immeasurably old, and peopled once 

By strange forgotten races, — standing now. 

Ruined, and mute, and vacant, on the brink 

Of deserts inconceivably remote. 



CATULLUS 




ORACE and Virgil I knew, and the 
stern, deep-throated Lucretius : 
Him of the chiselled phrase, smiling, 

and wise, and humane ; 
Builder of close-wrought songs, and 
prince of iEolian music ; 
Sage from whose lips is poured wisdom that lurks 
in a smile. 
Him of the magic line, the lofty thought, and the 
noble 
Tender heart that wept tears for the chances of fate. 
Him of the knitted brows, whose speech is a thun- 
dering torrent, 
Rolling in rushing waves, charged with impetuous 
thought ; 
Loudly defying the gods, phantasmal features of terror 
Fabled by shuddering men, children who cry in the 
night ; 

79 



8o CATULLUS 

Who, impatient of dreams, unpeoples the sky of its 
Masters, 
Points to a bare bleak world, chaos of atom and 
void, — 
Man, as a shipwrecked seaman, disconsolate, naked 
and helpless. 
Cast upon alien shores, impotent creature of chance. 
These I knew, but now what sudden voice in the 
silence 
Rising breaks on my ear, throbbing with passionate 
life ? 
New, distinct, and strange, yet strangely near and 
familiar, 
Voice of a living man, tremulous cry of the heart ! 
Over the gulph of years, and the sullen Stygian waters. 
Brother, I clasp thy hand ! Brother, I answer thy 
call! 
Thou, most human of all the Roman singers, Catullus, 
Touchest our hearts with thy song, fillest our eyes 
with thy tears. 
Lovely and glowing the tints, and firm the line, and 
the figures 



CATULLUS 8 1 

Moving and real in the brief pictures that live in 
thy words ; 
Light, and changing, and swift, the bounding rush of 
thy rhythm ; 
Loud with passion and sin echoes the tale of thy life. 
Joy in the earth and the sky, and the sea with its ships 
and its islands. 
Laughing waves that leap, lapping the threshold of 
home; 
Joy in the throng of the city, and joy in the green of 
the woodland. 
Restless love of the road, hurry of vagabond feet ; 
Kindly love of thy comrades, and deathless love of 
thy mistress. 
Love that tortured thy soul, love for a heart that 
was false : 
Still do they breathe in thy songs, thy bursts of tem- 
pestuous music. 
Sung in an old dead tongue, strains that are stronger 
than death. 
Stirred with the thrill of thy voice, and feeling the 
touch of thy spirit — 



82 CATULLUS 

Bard of the genial smile ! Bard of the bitterest 

tears, 
Tears of blood ! to thy shade I waft this tremulous 

greeting : 
Brother who livest though dead, hail and for ever 

farewell ! 



JUVENTUS ANNI 




USK and grey on the quiet fields, the 
flowerless meadows, 
Over the moist brown road, hangs 
the impalpable mist. 
Veiling the morning sun, the sky, and 
all the horizon 
Holds of tree-crowned slopes, populous dwellings 
of men. 
Bare black hedges enclose a space of grass, in the 
silence 
Lying mournfully still — never a tremour of air. 
Never a gleam of gold on the dull green sward, on 
the solemn 
Trees that spread to the grey haggard and motion- 
less arms. 
Yet in the leafless boughs unstirred a chorus is rising 
Fitful and brief, the shrill twitter of garrulous 
birds. 

83 



84 JUVENTUS ANNI 

Now a step on the path, a voice, and now in the 
distance 
Harsh on the crumpled road rustles a hurrying 
wheel, 
Heard from unseen spaces, withdrawn and islanded 
regions 
Hidden away and wrapt close in the folds of the 
mist. 



Yet, on the dubious verge of the blank inscrutable 
future. 
Though the youthful year, timid, and fearful, and 
grave. 
Draws about his brows the floating vaporous 
mantle — 
Yet in his throbbing veins leaping and ruddy and 
swift 
Courses the virile blood, and, fresh for the march and 
the combat. 
Supple and strong his limbs move on the shores of 
the world. 



JUVENTUS ANNI * 85 

Yet, with streaming hair, with kindling eyes, in the 
zenith 
Higher each resonant noon mounts the imperial 
Sun — 
Mounts, and more slowly descends a steeper path to 
his western 
Couch, and a longer spell lingering smiles in the sky. 



Deep in the womb of Earth, diffused through aerial 
spaces. 
Subtle and swift and sure-, — under the night and 
the stars. 
Under the querulous dawn of cheerless days, in the 
splendour 
Fading and brief of the rare passage of luminous 
hours, — 
Spirits of unborn life, invisible, hither and thither 
Moving ceaselessly toil — marshall the quickening 
winds. 
Loosen the clotted soil, in shrivelled trunks and in 
drooping 



86 JUVENTUS ANNI 

Boughs the languid sap drive in a hurrying stream, 
Touch and kindle the seeds that wait to fling on the 
woodlands 
Garlands of gorgeous bloom, mantles of purple and 
gold. 
Stir the naked hedges to laughter of leaf and of 
blossom. 
Call from the alien South legions of amorous 
birds, — 
Far in the skies and deep in the earth prepare the 
alluring 
Splendour and pomp, the loud revel of jubilant 
Spring. 



IN THE VALLEE DES VAUX, 
JERSEY 






^ 



UNSHINE and blowing airs, white 
clouds that move 
Slowly across the blue, the winding 

road 
Low-walled, the peaceful house among 
the trees. 
This couch of trembling grass and feathered moss. 
The green slope of the deep-enfolding hills : 
The chirp of birds, the lowing kine, the plash 
And ceaseless chatter of the tumbling stream. 
The gradual murmur of rustled leaves that grows 
Wave upon wave, and dies, and grows again, 
And all the whispered sounds of quiet life. — 
The rattle of a cart along the road 
Troubles the deep seclusion, scatters all 
The murmurs of the meadow and the stream, 

87 



88 IN THE VALLfiE DES VAUX, JERSEY 

Breaks through and fills the silence, echoing loud 
And far among the circling hills, — recedes, 
And dies into the distance, — and again 
The chirp of birds, the lowing kine, the plash 
And ceaseless chatter of the tumbling stream, 
The gradual murmur of rustled leaves that grows 
Wave upon wave, and dies, and grows again, 
And all the whispered sounds of quiet life 
Possess the vale, and sink into my soul, 
Silencing all its world of troubled thought. 
And flooding all my heart with tranquil joy 
Deep, deep and full. My pulses beat in time 
With the vast pulse of universal life. 
The throbbing heart of Nature ; I am one 
With all the sights I see, and with the sounds 
That fill the air my spirit sings in tune. 
I am no more a stranger in the house. 
But kin : the light clouds greet me as they pass. 
The glowing sun beams a fraternal smile. 
My sister breezes, hovering, kiss my cheek, 
The trees delight to shade me, the green earth 
Lovingly takes the pressure of my limbs ; 



IN THE VALLEE DES VAUX, JERSEY 89 

I feel my veins a-tingle with the stream, 
The bounding flood of life that flows and flows 
Ceaseless through all things, and almost I hear 
What the Great Mother murmurs in her sleep. 



ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT 
DECEMBER 




CHILL grey day; black branches of 

lean trees 
Above, with here and there a tattered 

leaf 
Black lingering yet among the tufted 
pods 
Which the bleak air stirs lightly as it blows ; 
Over the low-ebbed river heavily 
Hangs the grey fog ; just seen the spectral bridge 
Carries its spectral traffic over-stream; 
Dim outlines of tall buildings through the fog 
Loom from the farther shore, and here and there 
A shadowy chimney or a ghostly spire. 
Leaned on the parapet I watch the space 
Of flowing water vanishing to left 
And right into the grey obscurity. 

90 



ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT 91 

Under the bridge comes a slow panting tug, 

A line of barges trailed behind her ; slow 

They move with the slow current down the stream ; 

They pass before me, pass into the fog, 

Become a vague black mass against the grey 

That slowly draws about them, closes in 

Upon them, blots them out, and they are gone ; 

And only the dark river lapses by 

From greyness into greyness. In my ears 

Ceaseless the sound of quick steps on the flags, 

The rattle of wheels, and under all the roar 

Confused of the vast city endlessly 

Pulsing with multitudinous life. 

How far, 
How infinitely distant are the hills. 
The murmurous woods, the babble of tumbled streams. 
The light on the green meadows that I love — 
The glowing world where every breath is joy. 
Where all this huddled squalor is forgotten 
Or doubtfully remembered like a dream, — 
Where the uneasy movement and the clash 



92 



ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT 



Of hurried voices harsh is left behind, 
Far, far behind, and all the quiet vales 
Are hushed to hear when the Great Mother speaks. 

But see ! as if a subtle Spirit breathed 

Upon them unawares, — the dreary sky. 

The low-hung mist, the slow black river, take 

A look of sudden magic, a remote 

And solemn beauty, and a sound is heard 

Under the broken sounds that come and go. 

The sudden steps, the passing wheels, the shiver 

Of blackened boughs touched by the sullen breeze. 

The murmur of distant streets — under them all. 

Just heard, in every voice a deeper voice, 

A voice of many voices mingled, low 

And constant, — and a movement that is felt 

In every movement sweeps upon my soul. 

It is the murmur of the labouring world. 

The rhythm of Eternal Life that moves 

In leaf and waving grass, and in the stir 

Of peopled cities and of rocking seas. 




AN APOCALYPSE IN FLEET STREET 

OT always among streams and forest 
ways 
Do glimpses greet us of diviner days, 
Of rarer beauties and of lovelier 
loves, 
And sweeter flowers than bloom in earthly Mays. 

In Fleet Street once did I the Gleam behold — 
Fleet Street, where pressmen toil for little gold, 
Where is not heard the coo of Venus' doves. 
Nor love is known save what is bought and sold. 

Thick sable clouds filled all the murky air, 
And pressing multitudes the thoroughfare. 

With hurrying steps and looks preoccupied ; 
And clamour, and haste, and gloom were every- 
where. 



93 



94 AN APOCALYPSE IN FLEET STREET 

Then gradual over all there spread a glow 
Subdued, and faint, and soft — an overflow 
Of trickling light dispersed far and wide ; 
And spreading deep and deeper did it grow. 

It grew, and o'er the roofs from westward came 
A flash, — the widening splendour of a flame, — 

That things familiar strangely were descried, 
And naught of all that had been seemed the same. 

It was the Wizard of the Western Beam 

Had touched and torn the clouds, that thence a stream 

Rolled rosy under hanging banks of dark. 
And men and things were fused in a glamour of dream. 

In this poor House of Life, so meanly planned. 
Moments there are when walls and roof expand. 

And when we learn, if only we will mark. 
How near our dusty world is Fairyland. 



THE GROTTO OF HAN 

A mile or two above Han the Lesse suddenly disappears into the cliff, and 
having travelled some two miles underground, re-emerges into the open just 
above the village. The visitor to the Grotto ends by embarking on the 
subterranean stream, and is rowed out into daylight. 




UR boat is loosened from the rocky 
quay, 
Our feeble lamps go out ; 
We glide through silent waters silently, 
With darkness all about. 



Beneath dim, vaulted arches, lost in night, 
By shapeless shapes of gloom. 

We pass along the river lorn of light 
As toward some nameless doom. 



A glint of brightness — is it day .? It gleams 
Mysterious on the cold grey granite wall. 

Like elfin lights that through fantastic dreams 
Hover, and glance, and fall. 

95 



96 THE GROTTO OF HAN 

We turn, and out beyond the dark, between 
High leafy banks, the gleaming river flows, 

And warm upon a world of waving green 
The golden sunlight glows. 

Some day a grimmer bark shall bear us hence — 
Poor shades for ever lorn of life and love — 

Upon a vaster stream, in gloom more dense ; 
And silent we shall move 

Through subterranean caves, while Charon wields. 
Morose and taciturn, his silent oar — 

Ah ! shall we see God's sunshine on green fields 
Upon the farther shore ? 




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